Yes. Yes we do. Because their actions aren’t worthy of veneration, at all, in any way.
No, we cannot, anymore than we can afford to be a little magnanimous about the actions of Hermann Goering or Pol Pot or any other individual who fought in support of heinous and reprehensible ideals.
Confederate?
Fuck 'em.
Great-great-grandfather Potter just rolled over in his grave, but so be it. He fought on the wrong side.
I’m sure that’s what Johnson meant, yes.
If Congress created Memorial Day in 1971, and didn’t get around to defining what it meant until 2000, what did Memorial Day mean in the intervening 29 years?
In that it differs in at least two respects (war dead who did not embody “values and principles” worth treasuring, war dead who were not heroes) from the common conception of Memorial Day, and for those who wish to honor fallen Confederates, a third respect - no, I shan’t take my cues from the 2000 Congress about who should be honored under a holiday with roots from 1866.
The more I read this thread, the worse and worse my opinion gets. I’d like to change my vote from “hell no” to “fuck the confederacy and fuck the states who still celebrate memorializing confederate soldiers.”
What exactly is the concern, here? You’ll let your guard down for a moment, and neo-Confederates will reinstate chattel slavery?
Seriously. Antiquated, narrow, and divisive.
The concern is that to memorialize someone, by definition, we are preserving their memory. What was the memory of the confederacy? Really fucking evil. In so many ways, beyond just slavery. Were individual soldiers in the confederate army really fucking evil though? Probably not. But if you want to trot out that they were fighting against invaders just like anyone would, go ahead. Doesn’t mean that the invaders they were fighting against were doing the right thing, and that defending themselves was the absolute wrong thing to do.
I have a really hard time accepting that we should attach any positive feelings or memories to the confederacy, what they stood for, and why they fought and died. They are about as comically villainous as you get in the real world, other than Nazi Germany, really.
In actual practice, this is patently untrue. You have never been in a Southern graveyard on Memorial Day.
Again, though, what of it? We are looooong past the time where pro-Confederate forces might attempt to reignite hostilities if we don’t scold them at every turn. This is just moral outrage, there’s nothing at stake.
That is the position we’re talking about here, though. Honoring individual soldiers, who were scared young men doing what they thought was right, though they were badly mistaken in that belief. They were doing what any of us would have had we been born in their time and place. No, they weren’t doing the right thing, but they fought bravely and honorably, and their descendants should and do honor them for that.
For all our bloviating here, there’s nothing that can be done to stop an Alabama TV station from including Confederates in its Memorial Day broadcast, or to stop individuals with Confederate relatives from honoring them on that or any other day.
And if Germans want to honor their soldiers from World War Two on their equivalent to Memorial Day (if they have one), they should do so. It’s not an endorsement of the Third Reich, that fundamental disconnect seems to be driving animosity here.
Germans don’t parade around with Nazi flags on their BMWs, and spend their weekends dressing in Waffen SS uniforms and proclaiming every chance they get that their cause was a noble crusade and that Hitler will rise again!
There is nothing to honor, is what I’m saying. So they fought and died for evil reasons. Remember them, sure, and while remembering them, remember exactly who they fought for and why. But honoring and memorializing them is inappropriate, to me.
And you are 100% correct, it’s just moral outrage here. There’s absolutely nothing at stake, which is why it’s a fun thing to get riled up about, haha!
Just that these, particular ancestors aren’t worthy of veneration. Surely, that’s not some unique burden. Each and every human being has at least one, specific ancestor who would not be worthy of national veneration.
It’s ilegal there, is it not?
Is that what you think Civil War reenacting is? Good, noble people protray the Union, bad racist people portray the Confederacy?
Do you actually know any Southerners?
Uh, neither do 99.99999999% of Southeners. I’ve been here 13 years and have seen maybe two Confederate flags on cars, and I’ve never heard anyone claim that the rebellion was “noble crusade.”* Or that the South will Rise Again, except in jest.
*Granted, I did hear a docent at Ft. Donelson blame the war on that bloodthirsty tyrant Abe Lincoln.
Well, here is an article from 1886, with the headlines “Flowers for the Brave, Union and Confederate Dead honored in Chicago.”
It’s an interesting read. Looks like there where separate but coordinated Union and Confederate activities, with the Confederate vets paying tribute at both Union and Confederate graves. The article does not incidate any objection to the Confederate presence. The Confederate chaplain is quoted as saying:
“Whatever of sectional animosity or partisan hatred may have been evolved during the war, we are thankful that it no longer exists, and pray that we may now know of but one sentiment – the love of God and the love of our one country.”
Most of my family. And their friends. And all the people I meet traveling through the South. So quite a few, actually. Most aren’t assholes. Those with rebel flags on their trucks most definitely are.
As for re-enactors, I think all of them are crazy. And it takes both sides to make a fake battle. It’s just that one of those sides is demonstrably Evil, and a lot of the people who gravitate to that side support that evil.
And how many proclaim every chance they get that the war was a noble crusade, or that the South will rise again and fight another civil war?
They’re not crazy, they are just a specific type of nerd. They no more support evil than fanboys who dress as Darth Vader do.
That’s so preposterous I wonder if I’m being whooshed.
I think you might be reading a bit too much into that. It’s like saying people who dress as orcs for Halloween are evil because, hey, fucking orcs.